


My Name is Rory Williams (Or the one where Amy is Rory's imaginary friend)

by crayondall



Category: Doctor Who, Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Alternate Universe, F/M, Gen, Imaginary Friends, Young Amelia Pond, au- amy traveled with the doctor from childhood, eleventh hour-au, young rory williams
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-06-29
Updated: 2013-06-29
Packaged: 2017-12-16 14:40:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,902
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/863165
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/crayondall/pseuds/crayondall
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>My name is Rory Williams. When I was seven I had an imaginary friend. Last night, my imaginary friend came back.</p>
            </blockquote>





	My Name is Rory Williams (Or the one where Amy is Rory's imaginary friend)

**Author's Note:**

> What if Amy had started traveling with the Doctor from the first time they met, instead of being left behind. And what if as a result, Amy ended up erased from Earth. But Rory remembers her.
> 
> Also, I definitely don't own any of the characters. Or any of that stuff. I just really like Doctor Who. 
> 
> Also, this is my first work. I just figured I really needed to finish something, writing wise. And no one else read it first, so un-Beta'd?
> 
> Enjoy <3

My name is Rory Williams. When I was seven I had an imaginary friend. Last night, my imaginary friend came back.  
\----  
“Where’s Amelia?” Rory asked, looking at the empty desk beside him. He hadn’t known her to ever miss a day of class, especially when the teacher promised that they would talk about Rome and gladiators.  
“Amelia?”  
“What are you going on about this time Rory?”  
“Hit your head again Rory?”  
Rory’s classmates looked at him with the same confused looks that he was giving them. How could they not remember Amelia? Her bright red hair and Scottish accent, she’d only been there a few months but for Rory that was enough to know that no other girl would ever compare. And now everyone was telling him that there was no Amelia Pond.   
The rest of the day passed by slowly, something about Roman centurions that Amelia would have loved. If she was here. If she was real. Every once in a while, someone would cast a glance over at Rory. It was unnerving. He swore he wasn’t insane; it was just that he remembered, vividly, a girl that everyone else believed didn’t exist. Had never existed…   
Rory planned on heading to Amelia’s house after school, because this had to be some awful joke. Someone must have pulled her nametag off her desk and convinced everyone to pretend she wasn’t real. A big cruel joke on him… Right? Though even he couldn’t believe that Mrs. Ellis would have agreed to do that for a whole day, but maybe she just had a lot on her mind? It seemed weak even to his seven year-old brain, but… What else could explain her sudden disappearance? And the fact that no one else noticed it?

Things became even odder later in the day when he tried to talk to Mels. “Mels!” Rory shouted after his and Amelia’s other best friend. She paused for a moment and then continued with the girls she was walking with towards the lunchroom. Rory tried again. “Mels! Mels!”   
Mels turned around and fixed him with the most superior look that had ever graced the face of a first grader and degradingly asked him a question that made him want to cry, even more than discovering Amelia wasn’t real had. “Do I know you? Do you thing we’re friends? Why would I be friends with you? You’re stupid and boring.” Rory stood stock still as she walked away from him and returned to her giggling friends. Amelia wasn’t real. Mels wasn’t his friend. He pinched himself hoping that he would wake up. This was his worst nightmare.

“Rory, wait up.” Rory’s friend Jeff ran up to him at the end of the day. “Are you alright? Who’s Amelia Pond? What’s going on with you?”  
“You mean this isn’t some prank?”  
“Prank?” Jeff gave him a look, eyebrows furrowed with concern; there was no way he would allow people to mess with his best mate like that.  
“Must’ve had a really real dream last night…” Rory wasn’t convinced and Jeff wasn’t either, but if Jeff wasn’t pulling his leg, well then, Amelia must not be real. But… Rory shook his head violently, making his unruly mop of hair cover his eyes.   
The two boys walked home together. Rory abandoned his plan to knock on Amelia’s door, but couldn’t help glancing at her window when they passed by the house. It was different. Gone were the drawings that always filled the windows of her room and all of the curtains were drawn, making the house look all but abandoned.  
\----  
“We should start a rock band.”  
“Rory that might be the best idea you’ve ever had.” Jeff declared. “I definitely have the makings of a lead singer and you would be the best bassist ever.”  
“I was thinking more guitarist, all the girls would want me then.” Rory’s face was set seriously as he announced his intention to Jeff. “Besides, I’ve been growing out my hair and it looks rather rocker now.”   
“They would, wouldn’t they? Though they’d have to compete with our good friend Amelia Pond and I’m afraid no one will ever compare to our favorite Scot.” Jeff punched Rory on the arm to let him know that he was simply messing with him a bit, because even nine years later, Jeff refused to let Rory forget about his imaginary friend. Rory tried not to flinch at both the mention of the name and the punch. He was a teenager now. His days of imaginary friends were behind him, even if he had once been convinced that she was real.   
\----  
“You were completely awful. You know that, don’t you?” Mels cocked her head to the side and surveyed her friends. “I can’t believe people didn’t actually just walk out of the show… Must’ve been so drunk that they thought you sounded good.” After the confrontation in the hallway years before, Mels and Rory had finally become friends when Jeff and Mels briefly experimented in dating. Their relationship failed to last, but waiting with the boys in the staging area before gigs had created lasting friendships.  
“Thanks Mels, you always know just what to say to make a bloke feel good about himself.”   
“Not you Jeff, you weren’t that bad and even if you were… No one paid that any attention.” Mels looked pointedly at Jeff’s sleeveless arms, before turning back to Rory. “But really Rory. And that haircut isn’t doing you any favors either.”  
“Bu….” Rory stuttered out, trying once again to explain that he’d been distracted by a giant flying ship, it hadn’t been stage fright. Well, maybe a bit of stage fright, but that isn’t why he hadn’t played at all during their supposedly “best” song, Empty Spacesuit, some supposedly deep song about space and emptiness and relationships. They really needed to stop letting Mels name their songs…  
“Now don’t start with the Titanic talk again. I don’t care if there actually had been a giant ship in the sky, that doesn’t change the fact that you’re bloody awful.”  
Grimacing at the ground, Rory couldn’t help but agree that he had no talent for music, but the comment about his hair felt rather uncalled for.  
“Now come on, cheer up.” Wrapping her arms around both of the boys, she began leading them in the direction of the local pub, “This first round is on me.”  
\----  
“Red headed Scot at nine o’clock.” Jeff nudged Rory and lifted his drink in the general direction of a girl that was sitting at the bar next to a man in a… bowtie? Was that man wearing a bowtie? He looked like he’d raided the lost and found at nursing home where Rory worked.   
Rory leveled a glare at Jeff before evenly enquiring how he could possibly know if she were Scottish or not.  
“Mels walked by and heard her talking. I’d say she’s perfect for you. Maybe her name’ll even Amelia and if it’s not, maybe she’ll change it for you.” Jeff laughed at that and the undignified look that crossed Rory’s face.  
Shoving up behind them, Mels squeezed between the two of them. “No matter what her name is Rory, you need to go over there. This whole utter lack of relationships is sad. And there is no denying, that girl screams your type. You always find girls that look like her, so go.” She shoves him meaningfully away from the bar and towards the red head. Blissfully ignoring his protests that she was probably on a date with the man next to her and he shouldn’t interrupt.   
Jeff and Mels ignored his protests and Rory begrudgingly made his way across the bar. As he got closer, he could hear her laughing Scottish lilt. At one point, she tossed her hair over her shoulder and he caught a glimpse of her face. He stopped. It couldn’t be. She wasn’t real, but she looked exactly how he would have imagined a grown-up Amelia Pond. Jeff and Mels just have to be right about him having a very specific type. That has to be it. Only explanation.   
Taking a deep breath, Rory closed the distance between him and the bar until he stood next to the red head. He flags down the bartender for another drink, hoping that she might talk to him first. No such luck, even with his pint in hand, she had still not turned away from the man in the bow tie. Despite his distraction, he could have sworn their conversation had included aliens.   
Taking a swig of his drink and a deep breath, he tapped the girl on her shoulder. Swinging around on her stool, Rory stood inches away from the most stunning girl he’d ever seen. He could wait his entire life and he doubted he would ever meet anyone like her. She waited expectantly for him to say something, but all he could do was stare agape at her. His mind was going a million miles a minute, but his mouth failed to even form the word hello.  
“Well, considering this doesn’t seem to be going anywhere…” She paused momentarily for him to say something if he could manage.  
“Rory. My name’s Rory. Hello.” Rory stuttered out, silently berating himself for his inability to talk. He felt himself sinking slowly in front of her; there was no way she’d keep talking to him. She was probably going to turn a way in a second.  
“Rory…” She said his name slowly, like it was a memory that she was trying to place. “Well, Rory, it’s nice to meet you. I’m Amy and this is the Doctor.”  
Nervous laughter bubbled up from Rory’s throat, earning him a strange look from Amy. The Doctor was too busy with the paper umbrella in his drink to pay him much attention. “Sorry, but I have to ask… Did my friends ask you to say that was your name? Ridiculous. I know, but… I just… Never mind, no reason. Please forget I said that.” Rory fumbled over his words and could feel Amy and Mels and Jeff all watching him.   
“But what? Why would they ask me to do that?” Amy leaned towards him, a sudden flash in her eyes revealing that she needed to know the truth and that she hadn’t lied about her name.  
Although he was taken aback by her response, Rory started to tell her. “I had an imaginary friend when I was little and I was convinced she was real, that she just vanished one day. Ridiculous, I know.” He forced a laugh.  
Suddenly bow tie man, the Doctor, Rory reminded himself, leaned over, interested. Prodding Rory in the face with a light-up stick. “Did she have a name? How old were you? How old was she? What does this have to do with why they’d ask her to call herself Amy?”  
Amy swatted the glow stick from his face, but fixed Rory with a similar look and waited for him to respond.  
“I… I…” Rory wasn’t sure to make of the direction the conversation had taken and threw an imploring look over his shoulder, only to be met with encouraging looks from Jeff and Mels. Figuring there was nothing for it, he began to answer their questions. “I was eight and so was she. And they would have asked her to call herself Amy, because it was similar to my imaginary friend’s name…”  
“Amelia Pond.” All three of them said at the same time. Suddenly everything else seemed to disappear as the three of them stared at each other, trying to comprehend what was happening.  
The Doctor broke the silence first. “Impossible. She was erased from time and space. You can’t know she existed. No one knows.”  
“Clearly he does Doctor.”  
“But how?” The Doctor began poking at him again, more insistently this time, like Rory was a puzzle that needed to be solved.   
“Sorry, quick question. Are you telling me that I wasn’t crazy?” Rory interjected himself into the bickering.  
“Rory Williams, you were not crazy. We had Mrs. Ellis together for first grade and we were best friends.” Amy cast him a quick, sad smile. Rory was dumbfounded. For years, he would have been thrilled to have Amelia reappear, but somehow actually having her reappear wasn’t what he’d imagined. He watched as she turned to address the Doctor again. “And Doctor, I have no idea. And what are the chances that we would just happen to come upon him randomly? We were supposed to go to the 1800s and instead came here. You said yourself that you don’t believe in coincidences. This can’t be one.”  
“Hmm… No. No, it can’t… And he doesn’t appear to be alien. Seems like a normal human to me.” Rory’s eyebrows shot up at that point, clearly he hadn’t imagined their earlier conversation about aliens and a prisoner zero. “Well then, completely human Rory Williams, how would you like to help us out with something?”  
\----  
Standing guard outside the coma unit at the hospital, Rory took a moment to wonder how he’d gotten there. Sure, a beautiful girl claimed to be his childhood imaginary friend, but what kind of person believes that? Apparently him, but what had he gotten talked into? He was helping two strangers break into the hospital based on nothing but rumors picked up at the grocery store that Mr. Oliver swore he’d seen his comatose cousin buying peaches. Rory decided he desperately needed to reevaluate his life, but Amelia Pond was real. Not only was she real, she was alive.   
Mindlessly drawing circles on the wall with his finger, Rory went over Amy’s story again. A blue box crashed in her backyard, there were fish fingers and custard, a crack in her wall, and a quick trip to the moon that ended up lasting a dozen years. Light had reached out from the crack and tickled her arm when she wasn’t looking all those years ago. Little Amelia had been so distressed that the Doctor took her for a quick visit to the moon to show off what his blue box could do. Everything seemed to be fine, but when they got back, Amelia’s aunt was gone. Everything was gone. They’d knocked on neighbors’ doors, but no one seemed to know the little girl. Not knowing what else to do with a little girl lost in a world where she no longer existed, the Doctor took her with him. They’d been traveling together since, going everywhere in time and space.  
Rory snapped out of his reverie by a voice that seemed to be broadcasting everywhere. “Deliver Prisoner Zero to us or the home will be destroyed.” Blinking rapidly, Rory swung around to locate the source of the repeating voice. It came from everywhere: his phone, the speakers, the radio…  
“Drat. I was hoping to have a bit more time.” The Doctor burst brusquely through the door followed by Amy. He appeared to have commandeered a new tweed jacket while in the coma unit. “Plan. We need a plan… We need to let the Atraxi know that we’re not harboring him willingly and show them any disguise he might have taken.” He paced back in forth tapping his forehead with his sonic screwdriver in a steady rhythm.   
Amy leaned against the wall, seemingly without a care in the world. She appeared to believe that there was nothing to worry about, though Rory could feel himself freaking out. Aliens. There were aliens. The aliens were going to destroy the planet.   
“Ah! Rory. You have a phone and it can take photos, yes?” Rory nodded, not seeing how that would matter. “Right, yes.” An open hand appeared in front of Rory waiting for him to put the phone in the proffered hand. After a moment, Rory handed it over and watched as the Doctor disappeared into the coma unit again.  
“It’s going to be a ridiculous bill, probably.” Amy spoke from her position leaning on the wall.  
“What?”  
“He’s going to send the Atraxi pictures of all the coma patients, so they’ll know where to look for prisoner zero. It should work, but you’ll be left with a massive bill.”  
“Oh.” Rory couldn’t think of anything else to say.  
Amy disappeared into the coma unit now and Rory hesitated momentarily before entering the room too.  
\----  
Had Rory not been standing there, he wouldn’t have believed it. Not only had the Doctor undoubtedly given him the world’s largest phone bill, he also set in motion the events that captured prisoner zero. That would have been enough in one day for Rory, maybe an entire lifetime. But the Doctor called the Atraxi back. He called back the aliens that almost destroyed the planet. Yet instead of ending with burning buildings and giant craters, the Doctor’s confrontation with them seemed to guarantee they’d never return. It was over.   
\----  
Rory walked home in a fog. He had met aliens and more importantly, Amelia Pond. He also watched her walk into a police box and disappear. He finally found her and he let her walk away. He was clearly an idiot.  
\----  
Later that night, he heard a strange sound from his back garden. Climbing slowly out of bed, he saw the blue box again and two figures waiting outside it staring up at him.   
Amelia shouted up to him. “Well, are you coming with us?”


End file.
